One Christmas present that may not have been under the tree this year for many college women is a boyfriend — at least one in the form of a college man. Reports are proliferating and concern is rising over the paucity of men attending college. Department of Education figures show men now represent fewer than 45 percent of today's U.S. college undergraduates, down from 55 percent in 1970. There's only one state where women can expect to be outnumbered by men on campus — Utah.
Maybe today's college woman is not concerned about this disproportion. But I know I would have been. Academics are primary, but a healthy social life is also an integral part of a full college experience. When I spoke recently to an American University forum, students were asked whether the predominance of women on campus was of concern to them. A large majority of the 250 people in the audience raised their hands.
What's more curious still is that the experts claim not to know exactly why this is happening. According to the American Council on Education, men are still the majority on campus (although a slimmer majority than in the past) at most prestigious institutions, including Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The council also reports men are still earning the vast majority of professional, business, science and engineering degrees, which leads them into higher paying positions when they do graduate.
Some note that older women are returning to college in greater percentages, whereas men not going to college directly from high school tend never to go back.
Others say the gap is much larger for minorities and lower-income whites. Jacqueline King, who wrote a recent study on the gap for the council, reported black women outnumber black men on campus by 63 percent to 37 percent, and Hispanic women outnumber Hispanic men by 57 percent to 43 percent.
Despite the lack of consensus from experts who see no clear reason for the gap, the reason seems pretty clear to me. Lower-income men of all ethnic backgrounds are opting not to spend money or go into debt for a college degree and instead are going directly into the work force from high school. In a hot economy that may have worked. In a cooling economy it will be tougher for these men to find jobs that pay a living wage.
Also, an educated populace is essential if we are to maintain our position as the leader in today's global information economy.
It seems a two-pronged approach is necessary if we are to persuade more lower-income men to attend college. First and foremost we must wage a cultural war via the bully pulpit to convince them that education is "cool" and studying is good. That may sound ridiculously simplistic, but it's not. Time magazine quotes Clifford Thornton, associate dean of admissions at Wesleyan University as saying, "For males, there's no social currency in being a straight-A student." If that's true, it must be reversed — and soon.
And we must make college more affordable for all who want to attend. After all, as expensive and long-term a commitment as it is, college graduates still earn twice as much over a lifetime as those who did not graduate.
Bonnie Erbe, host of the PBS program "To the Contrary," writes this column for Scripps Howard News Service. E-mail bonnieerbe@CompuServe.com.